Improving reading rates through timed repeated reading

 

  

Good reading fluency is the ability to read a text quickly, effortlessly, smoothly, and automatically, with little attention devoted to decoding. Fluent reading is reflected in the ability to maintain a good reading speed over time. For reading fluency to be good, word recognition must be automatic and decoding must be accurate. Fluent reading improves comprehension because it does not interrupt the flow of ideas and allows information from different sources to be integrated during reading.

When children with intact reading ability encounter a new word, they read it through the sub-lexical route, that is, by decoding it letter by letter and sound by sound. After reading the new word 4–5 times through the sub-lexical route, the visual form of the word becomes fixed in memory and joins the orthographic lexicon. In this lexicon we store words whose visual appearance we recognize as whole units. Children with impairment in this process have difficulty expanding their orthographic lexicon. They read even familiar words through the sub-lexical route, and therefore their reading is accurate but slow.

How can reading fluency be improved in children who struggle with this difficulty?

Chang and Millett present a method called timed repeated reading. In this method, children are given a short text in which the overwhelming majority of the words are already familiar to them linguistically. First, the teacher reads the text aloud while the children look at the text and follow along. Alternatively, the children listen to a recording of the teacher reading the text and follow along. The children then read the text aloud independently with a stopwatch, as quickly and accurately as possible. If there are words the children don't know, they don't check their meaning but continue reading. When they finish reading, the children record how long it took them. The children then read the text aloud two or three more times with a stopwatch, recording reading time after each reading. It is recommended that children practice this method every day.

What are the advantages of this process?

• Repeated reading provides repeated exposure to the visual form of words and helps fix them in the orthographic lexicon.
• Repeated reading of a familiar text reduces the anxiety that struggling readers experience when they see a new text, thereby freeing resources for the reading task itself.
• The short text ensures that this daily practice is not exhausting.
• Repeated timing serves as a motivational factor, because the children “compete with themselves” and see how their reading rates gradually improve.
• Recording the reading time improves the children’s concentration on the text, since every distraction causes “wasted time.”
• The method encourages children not to dwell on the meaning of every unfamiliar word, but rather to infer its meaning from the context. In this way, the flow of ideas in the text is not interrupted during reading.
• Finally, repeated reading helps some children break the habit of slow, decoding-based reading and move toward reading groups of words and meaningful phrases.

Chang and Millett tested the method with two groups of students in Taiwan who were learning English as a second language. Each group included 13 students. They read 26 short texts over 13 intervention days. On each intervention day, two new texts were read. In the repeated-reading group, the students read each text five times silently while their reading time was measured, and answered multiple-choice comprehension questions after the first reading and after the fifth reading. In the control group, the students read the same texts, but each text only once, and answered the comprehension questions only once. The students in both groups were asked to read the texts as quickly as they could, without looking up words they did not understand. When answering the questions, they were asked not to look back at the text to find the answers.

It should be noted that the students performed the repeated-reading method silently rather than aloud. When the method is performed through silent reading, it is very important to have the children answer questions about the text. The purpose of the questions is to make sure that the children are actually reading the text and not merely skimming it in order to achieve a faster reading rate. Therefore, it is sufficient for the questions to be content questions; they do not need to be inference questions.

Before the intervention, the students read two texts that were similar in nature, in terms of length and language features, to the texts practiced during the intervention, as well as a third text that was longer and more complex than the texts practiced during the intervention. Each text was read once, and the students answered questions about it.

At the end of the intervention, the researchers tested the students using two new texts that were similar in nature to the texts practiced during the intervention, and using the same third, longer and more complex text that had been read before the intervention. Each text was read once, and the students answered questions about it.

The students in the repeated-reading group increased their reading rate by 46% on the two texts similar to those practiced, and by 45% on the complex text. The students in the control group increased their reading rate by 12% on the texts similar to those practiced, and by 7% on the complex text. The differences between the groups were significant.

The students in the repeated-reading group improved their reading comprehension, as assessed by the content questions, by 19% on the texts similar to those practiced, and by 17% on the complex text. The students in the control group improved their reading comprehension by 5% on the texts similar to those practiced, and by 3% on the complex text. There was a significant difference between the repeated-reading group and the control group in reading comprehension of the complex text.

This study showed that timed repeated reading improves both reading rate and reading comprehension. It is worthwhile to introduce teachers to this method when it is relevant for the child.

Chang, A., & Millett, S. (2013). Improving reading rates and comprehension through timed repeated reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 25(2), 126–148.